Happily, Sadly, and Everything In Between Ever After
by anxiousalpaca
Summary: Just Simon, Baz and Penny getting on with their lives after Carry On. Simon got his endgame after all.
1. Simon has a panic attack

After a break of several years, I'm giving fanfiction a try again. It's safe to say that I'm more than a little rusty, so bear with me! My favourite part of any story is that brief bit at the end where everything has been solved and you get a few pages or maybe a chapter of the characters just living their lives, so as I'm a bit obsessed with Carry On at the minute I thought I'd have a go at writing what I think life would be like for Simon and Baz after Carry On.

All these characters belong to Rainbow Rowell.

* * *

" **Stop it, stop hurting me!** " _The Mage gasps, then falls to the floor and lies still. "Oh God, Penny, I think he's dead! I think I killed him!" I lean over the Mage's broken body, my brain rejecting the information my eyes are sending. My eyes are telling me that the Mage is dead, which is obviously a mistake because the Mage can't die. He's_ the Mage. _I grab his shoulder and shake him. "Wake up!" I scream. "Wake up! Don't leave me here alone. I need you. I need you. This can't- No! No no no no no no!" I'm screaming for him, but he doesn't respond. This is what makes me realise that he really is gone. I take his hand and clutch his arm against my chest. Tears are streaming down my cheeks. I need to say sorry a million times, and a lifetime's worth of goodbyes. But there isn't time for that. Penny and Baz… They were right next to me. Where are they? Are they okay? I gently lay the Mage's hand down on his chest, over his heart. My own heart is more than broken; it's been pulverised. I start to stand up, but I've barely moved when I feel an ice cold_ something _grab my arm. I look down in horror and see a grey, skeletal hand fastened around my wrist. My eyes travel from the dead hand to the Mage's body. I scream. He's decayed 4 months in 4 seconds. His skin is rotting. His eye sockets are empty. And those hideous, empty cavities are turned towards me._

"Simon _," he hisses, and I recoil in terror. His mouth is writhing with maggots. "You did this…," he whispers. "You killed me and left me to rot. I was like a father to you… And you killed me." I'm shaking my head and trying to pull away from the monstrous Mage, but he won't let me go. "Murderer!" he accuses._

" _NO!" I shout. "I didn't mean to! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry…" I wrench my wrist out of his grasp and scramble backwards away from him, before stumbling to my feet and running like all the hounds of hell are behind me._

" _Simon!" the Mage calls after me. "My boy… Don't leave me here alone…"_

I wake up drenched in cold sweat. I'm all tangled up in my duvet, which is half over me and half hanging off the edge of the bed. I sit up slowly, and press the heels of my palms into my closed eyes. The image of the warped and decaying Mage is seared onto the backs of my eyelids. I dig my palms in harder, until it hurts, hoping that the pain will erase the image. It doesn't.

 _The Mage is dead, because you killed him._

Right on cue, my mind replays the fight in the Chapel: how I screamed " _ **Stop it, stop hurting me!**_ " and the Mage just… crumpled. Like a puppet whose strings had been cut. I remember the sickening lurch of horror that washed over me when I realised what I'd done.

 _Oh God oh God oh God oh God_.

I'm going to throw up. My heart is pounding and my chest can't contain it. I try to take deep breaths, like my therapist said to do, but it's as though someone's dropped a suitcase packed for a three week family holiday in Florida on my chest. I can't breathe. The Mage's death is on replay in my head. I'm going to die too. I'm going to die right now, and I'll deserve it because I killed him.

 _You killed him you killed him you killed him._

Baz. I need Baz. I look over at his side of the bed and find it empty. I stare uncomprehending at his pillow for a moment, before my brain catches up and I remember that he stayed at his flat tonight because he had a lot of uni work to do. I fumble around in the dark for my phone and yank it off the charger. My hand is shaking, and it takes me three tries to correctly type in my lock code. I find Baz in my recent contacts, and press call. He answers on the second ring.

"Can't sleep, Snow?" His voice sounds weary. I try and speak, but the words get stuck in my throat and all I can do is draw hoarse, shallow breaths.

"Snow? What's wrong? Are you alright?" He sounds wide awake now, and scared.

"Baz." I manage to choke out. "I can't-, can't breathe-."

"Easy there, Snow, easy there," he says gently. "I'll come over right now. Just hang on, okay? I'll be there in ten minutes. Want me to stay on the phone to you?"

I shake my head, then remember he can't see me. "No, it's okay, just…" I don't say _hurry_ , but he understands.

"Ten minutes, Snow." He hangs up.

I put the phone down on my bedside table, then curl up in a ball and wrap my wings around myself. _Baz is coming. Hang on_.

Less than ten minutes have passed when I hear the click of our front door, followed by footsteps, and then the sound of my bedroom door opening. More footsteps, then the bed dips slightly as Baz lies next to me. He taps one of my wings lightly.

"Knock, knock. You in there, Snow?"

I lift one wing and look up at him. He's lying on his side, propped up on one elbow, and he's looking down at me with wide eyes full of concern. My last scrap of control evaporates and I start sobbing, only I still can't breathe, so they're horrible, shuddering sobs that rock my whole body as I cry and suffocate all at once. Baz lies down properly so that his head is resting on the pillow, and holds out the hand he was leaning on to me.

"It's okay, love. You're okay. Can you take my hand?" I take his hand and squeeze it tightly, like how Frodo gripped Sam's hand in that bit in the last film where Sam is the only thing keeping Frodo from falling into the fires of Mount Doom. That feels like an appropriate metaphor right now.

"You're having a panic attack, Simon," he says, softly. "I know that the memories you have are awful. But they can't hurt you. And they will fade."

I'm looking in Baz's direction, but I'm not looking _at_ him. All I can see is the Mage, and the Chapel, and blood. I squeeze my eyes shut and turn away from Baz, burying my head in my pillow.

"Simon, look at me," Baz says, squeezing my hand. I turn my head back to him.

"Where are we right now?" he asks.

My head is full of images of the Chapel. _But that's not where we are, is it?_

"We're in my flat." I say, hesitantly. He squeezes my hand again.

"Yes. That's where we are. And what month is it?"

Getting to the answer feels like wading through deep snow. _Ha. Snow_. "…September. We're in September." _Not December._

"That's right," he says, giving my hand another squeeze. "The things you're thinking of… That was then, and this is now. You're here with me now."

He places my hand in his over his heart. I try not to think about how I placed the Mage's hand over his heart in my nightmare.

"Try and breathe with me," he whispers. "Breathe in when I do, and out when I do."

I try. It's hard. I focus on his chest. I watch it steadily rise and fall. This helps me to block out the things I don't want to see. I breathe when he does. I keep doing that. My breathing gradually becomes slower and easier.

"Better now?" he asks, stroking his thumb over my hand. I nod, then wriggle closer to him and press my head into his shoulder. He extracts his free arm from where it's trapped between us and wraps it around me. I feel like I need to apologise for dragging him over here at 3am. I've been apologising a lot recently. When I talked to my therapist about this, she told me to try saying thank you instead of sorry. _"It seems to me, Simon, that you feel this need to apologise because you're afraid that your friends view you as a burden. Is it possible that this isn't actually the case? If Baz or Penny needed your help, I don't think you'd consider them a burden. I'd like to make a suggestion, if that's alright with you. Next time you feel like you need to apologise to your friends, perhaps you could try thanking them instead?"_

The words "sorry for being such a pathetic, needy mess," are on the tip of my tongue. I don't say that, though. Instead I say: "thank you for coming, Baz."

"Any time, Snow." I squeeze his hand again and he squeezes mine back. "I mean it. Any time."

We lie together in silence for a little while. I'm aware that I'm still shaking. Baz must be aware of this too, as he hugs me closer to him and asks "so, what shall we do today?"

"Haven't you got lectures?"

"It's Saturday, Snow."

"Oh yeah. I dunno." I still can't think.

"Okay, here's what I think we should do. First, we're going to have a lie in. Then when we wake up, we're going to go to that bakery at the end of your road and get some scones and coffee. Then we'll bring them back here and eat them in bed while watching Netflix. We can even watch that stupidly unrealistic vampire programme you've suddenly become obsessed with. How does that sound?"

I bring our joined hands to my lips and kiss his hand. _What did I do to deserve you, Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch?_

"That sounds perfect."


	2. Christmas decorating

I know it's far too early to be writing about Christmas, but I felt like writing something Christmassy! I'm going back to uni in a week, which means I'm already counting down the days until Christmas as that's when I'll next be home :(

Thank you so much to the lovely people who left me reviews for the last chapter! :)

All these characters belong to Rainbow Rowell.

* * *

I'm ambushed by Snow the second I step foot through his front door. He plants a quick kiss on my cheek before dragging me to the centre of his living room. Their coffee table has been pushed aside, and in its place is a massive cardboard box with a picture of a Christmas tree on it.

"You're late!" he whines. "We were supposed to get started half an hour ago."

I unwind my scarf from my neck and shake out my soaking wet hair (it's typical British winter weather outside: no snow, but the rain gets colder).

"Sorry Snow, had to go and speak to a lecturer."

Bunce is sat on the sofa, hiding her exasperated grin behind a cup of tea. Simon is now hacking the box open non-magickally, with a pair of kitchen scissors.

"Alright, Bunce?" I say.

She nods at me, then gets up and heads towards her bedroom.

"Have fun, boys," she says, patting me on the shoulder as she passes.

"What, you're not staying?" I ask, mildly distressed. Bunce's presence would inject some much needed sense into the proceedings. Sense is clearly in short supply around here: Simon is currently unpacking the Christmas tree components and exclaiming in delight at each almost identical piece.

Bunce laughs. "No chance. I already had to go through this with my brothers and sisters last weekend." She mouths "good luck" at me before going into her room and shutting the door behind her. Smart girl.

With a sigh, I kneel down next to Simon. "Okay, I think I've figured this out," he says. "That one is the base. These are all trunk pieces. And this pile here is the branch pieces."

"Good to know," I say, as I extract my wand from my sleeve. I wave it over the tree pieces and incant " _ **All together n-**_ " before Simon grabs my wrist, looking horrified.

"We can't use magic! It'll take all the fun out of it!"

I glance at the box. "Snow, this says it takes _3 hours to assemble_."

"Better get started then, hadn't we?" he pouts.

I sense that this isn't an argument I'm going to win. "Can I at least grab something to eat first? Some of us haven't had dinner yet."

"Get a Domino's," Simon says absently. He's lost interest in me now that I've agreed to assemble the tree without magic, and is instead trying to screw the first trunk piece into the base. I shrug my coat off, then retrieve my phone from my bag and find the number. Ordering pizza has become a bit of a habit for us. Snow is still adjusting to cooking the Normal way and can't even make an omelette without setting the kitchen on fire, and between Watford and our house in Hampshire I've never had to cook for myself. The only time we eat any decent food is when Bunce cooks for us, which she won't do often because _we can't rely on her to do the cooking just because she's a girl, I'm only cooking just this once because you two are so bloody helpless._

I order our usual, then go and assist Snow with the tree. Thankfully the pizza only takes 20 minutes to arrive (much longer and I would have eaten Snow). I'm getting us some drinks from the kitchen when I hear him shout through "while you're up…" from the living room.

"Yeah?" I shout back.

"Put some Christmas music on," he pleads.

I return to the living room specifically so that I can roll my eyes at him. "Come on Snow, I'm already at seasonal merriment capacity."

"Please?" he says, blinking wide, blue, puppy-dog eyes up at me. Damn him. Damn him and his goddamn gorgeous eyes.

"Fine," I huff, and head over to Snow and Bunce's not exactly state of the art CD player. There's a pile of Christmas CD's stacked next to it, purchased by Snow from various charity shops. I flick through the pile and try to decide which would be the least nauseating.

Snow beams at me as I sit back down next to him. We munch our way through the food, then resume work on the tree. Snow and I chat amiably about our days as we work, and little by little my seasonal gloom starts to retreat. The song playing currently is actually quite catchy, and I hum along happily as I arrange the branches on the piece I just attached. At least, until I catch Snow looking at me with one eyebrow raised and an amused grin on his face.

"What?"

"You were humming."

I scowl. "No I wasn't."

"You so were." He laughs and shakes his head at me, then resumes arranging branches. I do the same, resisting the urge to start humming again ( _it's a really catchy song)_.

When the CD finishes, Simon gets up to put a new CD on. When I hear the all too familiar intro to that song by _Slade_ , I groan.

"Really, Snow?"

He just laughs. The second song on the CD is _Last Christmas_ by _Wham!_. We both look up at each other when we realise what song it is. He gets up and drags me to my feet, and before I know what's happening we're spinning around the living room hand in hand, singing the ridiculously cheesy lyrics to each other.

By the time the song finishes we're completely out of breath and laughing our heads off. I wrap my arms around Snow's waist and rest my forehead against his, trying to get my breath back. Still laughing, he takes advantage of my face being in such close proximity and kisses me. I can feel him smiling under my lips. _I love you, Simon Snow,_ I think to myself. _I love you even though you like really bad Christmas music_.

It takes another hour after that to finish the tree, during which I endure a truly abhorrent selection of Christmas songs. When the last branch is finally in place we step back to admire our handiwork.

"Got to hand it to you, Snow, it doesn't look half bad."

"It'll look better when it's decorated."

I turn to him in horror. "You mean we're not done?"

"Of course we're not done. Have you ever heard of a Christmas tree without decorations?"

"We don't _have_ any decorations."

"I know. We're going to buy some tomorrow."

I close my eyes. "Snow, if I can survive a whole day of ceaselessly irritating Christmas shoppers without tearing out someone's jugular it'll be a Christmas miracle."

I lose this particular battle ( _you know how in Shrek 2 everyone goes all mushy when Puss in Boots does the eye thing? Yeah, that's me and Snow. I can't say no to those eyes_ ).

We return to the flat the next day after having purchased:

1) 3 sets of baubles (one of black and white glass baubles chosen by me, one of traditional green and red baubles with Santa's and reindeers on chosen by Snow, and one of oddly shaped purple and blue glittery baubles also chosen by Snow so that Bunce will be represented on the tree too)

2) Excessive amounts of red tinsel ( _"Tinsel is gaudy, Snow." "Don't be such a Grinch, Baz."_ )

3) 2 strings of multi-coloured fairy lights

4) 1 gingerbread latte (Snow)

5) 1 pumpkin mocha breve (me)

6) 3 butter and treacle pancakes (mostly Snow)

He starts laying it all out on the sofa as soon as we get back. My supply of goodwill is just about depleted and I feel a sudden spark of irritation.

"Can't we at least have a _5 minute break_ before we start getting all this stuff out?"

He looks like he's going to slam down the box of decorations he's holding, but thinks better of it and places it carefully on the sofa before turning to face me and glaring.

"What _is_ your problem, Baz? You've been in a mood all day, and to be honest, it's starting to piss me off."

"I'm not _in a mood_ , Snow. I'm just fed up of having Christmas paraphernalia shoved down my throat."

"Crowley, Baz, I'm hardly _shoving it down your throat_."

I take a step back gesture broadly at the tree, the CD's, and our shopping bags. "What do you call this then?"

He throws his arms up in the air and turns away. "Fine then. Whatever. If it's too Christmassy around here for you, feel free to leave. Try not to trip over _the hundreds of decorations we bought_ on your way out."

I feel my fangs erupt from my gums (they pop out when I get angry) and slice into my lower lip, which bloody hurts.

" _Crowley_. Ow." Holding my hand to my mouth, I snarl " _Fine_ then", and storm out, making sure to slam the door shut behind me.

I get into my car, but don't start the engine. Instead I lean back in my seat and close my eyes, feeling the uncomfortable sensation of my fangs sliding back in. My anger has already subsided. I wasn't really angry in the first place, just… drained. I picture Snow upstairs in his flat, sat alone surrounded by all those ridiculous Christmas decorations. _I want to be your boyfriend. Your terrible boyfriend_. Snow said those words to me almost a year ago now, and the irony isn't lost on me. It's not him who's the terrible boyfriend; it's me.

In a second I fly out of the car and up the stairs, and burst back into the flat. He's sat on the sofa with his head in his hands, looking as dejected as I felt a moment ago. He looks up as I enter and blinks in surprise.

"You came back."

"I never left. I was sat in the car."

I kneel down in front of him and hug him tightly to me, one hand on his back and the other clutching the back of his neck.

"I'm sorry," I say into his shoulder.

"Me too," comes his muffled reply. We draw apart, and I shove aside some of the boxes so I can sit next to him on the sofa.

"I know this time of year is... tough," I say, carefully. "I'm feeling it too. Is it… all this Christmas stuff, is it because of what happened last year?" He shakes his head.

"No… I mean, yeah, that's part of it, but…"

 _Use your words, Simon._

He takes a deep breath. "You're right that part of the reason why I'm trying so hard is because last year was, well, pretty much the worst Christmas any of us could have imagined. But that isn't… That's not the only reason. It's like… I've never had a proper Christmas before. There would always be a tree and presents at whatever home I was at, but… You know. It was never… yeah. Even when I started going to the Wellbelove's for Christmas… I was still just a guest. And then last year… Well, you know what happened. But this year, for the first time I've got a proper home and you and Penny… I just thought maybe this year I could have a proper Christmas with the people I love."

 _Oh, Simon._ I feel like the most selfish, inconsiderate boyfriend ever.

"Crowley, Snow…" I take his hand and press a kiss into his shoulder. "We can do Christmas. We'll have the best Christmas ever."

He squeezes my hand. I swear, a good 90% of our relationship consists of hand-holding.

"Why are you the boy who hates Christmas, Baz?" he asks softly.

"I don't _hate_ it," I reply. "It was just never the same without my mum. We make an effort now for the little ones, but it's too late for me." My voices catches a little as I say that last bit, so I clear my throat to cover it.

Snow's eyes are wide and sad. I feel a sudden urge to lighten the mood.

"Plus, in recent years, Christmas meant spending 2 weeks apart from you," I joke. "How could I enjoy it when I knew that you were off with Wellbelove, getting up to all sorts of festive fun?"

He has the decency to blush.

"I don't know what you're implying, but a typical Christmas with Agatha involved me dragging her off on a mission of some kind, and her complaining the whole time that my fulfilling my destiny as the Chosen One will make us late for their Christmas party. I missed you too, over Christmas."

I roll my eyes. "No, you didn't. It just drove you crazy thinking of all the evil plots I could come up with in 2 weeks."

He knocks his shoulder into mine. "I did miss you. I just didn't know it at the time."

"You're an idiot, Snow."

"Yeah, I think we established that when it took me 7 years to realise that I'm in love with you."

Every time I hear those words "I'm in love with you", it gives me very warm, fuzzy un-vampire-like feelings. I seize one of the boxes that I shoved aside and hold it on my lap.

"Right. We've got a lot of work to do, so we'd better get started. I'll lay out all the decorations, because I can unpack them with magic and I don't trust you with those scissors. You put the Christmas music on."

He smiles widely at me, then takes my face in his hands and kisses me.

"What was that for?" I ask when we break apart.

"Being perfect," he says. He steals another quick kiss before bouncing over to the stereo. To my own surprise, I find myself thinking that Christmas music isn't so bad.

Hours later, we're finally finished. Snow runs round the flat and turns all the lights out, then stands in front of the tree staring mesmerised at the flickering fairy lights. I move to stand behind him and rest my chin on his shoulder (he's the perfect height for that). He leans back into me, and we stay like that for a while.

"Happy Christmas, Snow," I murmur.

"Happy Christmas, Baz."


End file.
